I do not improve

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gamesfan

For a long time I am at the same level. Now I am getting a feeling that I am worse than before.

I am playing but it seems it is not enough. I am training tactics and trying to see my mistakes but it does not work. Am I doing something wrong or have I reached my maximum level?

There is probably some aspect that I don't understand.

Why am I getting even worse than before?

leiph18

Sometimes after studying or practicing people get a little worse. The new ideas or skills haven't been properly assimilated into your play yet.

But after this brief period, you will eventually start playing better than you were before.

As for being the same level "a long time" well it just depends. Sometimes it's natural. Keep playing and practicing and you'll overcome it.

Other times, if you've been the same for years, then you probably have bad habits and you'll have to make changes.

X_PLAYER_J_X

You have posted alot of forums about not improving. However, I have not seen anything you have suggested in doing that is not helping you improve.

I just want to know what exactly are you doing?

Are you studying anything? are you reviewing your games? Are you reading or viewing videos of how to improve?

moveslowbro

what time contro do u play? I dont want to discriminate blitz but your newly learned strategies should be utilized in standard or higher. Besides doing tactics trainer is not enough. It is good to be aggresive(I enjoy games which are all attack ) but developing a stronger positional ability is also important

clarapca

leiph18 wrote:

Sometimes after studying or practicing people get a little worse. The new ideas or skills haven't been properly assimilated into your play yet.

But after this brief period, you will eventually start playing better than you were before.

As for being the same level "a long time" well it just depends. Sometimes it's natural. Keep playing and practicing and you'll overcome it.

Other times, if you've been the same for years, then you probably have bad habits and you'll have to make changes.

he is right studing sometimes makes you play a little worse until you see the light and the new knowledge start to appear in your games. After reading some books about strategy I think I getting the grasp for it...half a year ago I didnt even know what a pawn chain was

bablamaity

good topic. Same for me as well.I won not because of my constructive move but due to opponents mistake.I am lacking creativity.How can I improve?

Pacilus

skewer.png

X_PLAYER_J_X

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/it-feels-like-i-dont-improve

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/can-you-help-me-improve

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/i-do-not-seem-to-improve

 

 

You will never improve becuase you are not serious about improving.

People ask you questions on multiple forums of what you are doing to try and help you improve. You don't respond. All you do is create another forum. This is your 4th forum. You have been asking these same forum questions for over 1-2 years.

The truthful answer is: The day you start to improve will be the day you start pushing yourself to improve.

If people wish to gain muscle they do a work out plan/schedule to try and get stronger.

If people wish to lose weight they do a weight loss plan/schedule every day to try and lose weight.

If you wish to improve your chess you need a chess plan.

I will also like to point out that your plan has to be a pretty reasonable one for example: I will give you a metaphor

If someone wanted to lose weight and was doing a weight loss plan and than in their plan they decided they was planning to eat pie's every day the chances of them losing weight even doing their weight loss plan would not work.

So when you make a chess plan figure out how much time you plan to invest in this plan every day.

I have a chess plan it is a very simple plan.

I decided to invest at least 2 hours a day on my chess plan. Everyone has a set amount of time they have that is free to them. I know some people who have chess plan of only 15  min, 30 min, or even some who have chess plans of over 5 hours. So depending on how much time you have for your plan its important that way you can make a plan around your time.

My time I decide to invest was 2 hours seems reasonable to me.

I than did a break down of what I plan to do every day.

Let me give you an example lets say for Monday chess work out.

  • Review & comment on 1 of my games.
  • Review or watch a Master game.
  • Do a 1-3 tactical puzzles.
  • Review/Understand some Opening Game = Opening theory.

The reason I have this one highlighted in red instead of the other ones is because usually I change this one every day.


 

  • Review & comment on 1 of my games.

Bascially I look at 1 of the games I played and try review all my mistakes. I check it with computer engines and different databases to see what is the best move compared to my move.

I than comment on each move trying to figure out what I was thinking when I made my move. Once I finish writing my commentary and reviewing I than post my game to my forums. So other people can see them to give me idea's of where I might have gone wrote as tips.

I was playing black you can see an example.


All together maybe this take me sometimes from 30-1 hour depending on how long the game is.

This game in particular took me about 1 hour becuase I did alot of variations and commenting etc. As you can see very length commenting which doesn't have to happen. I just chose to do that so depending on your time span you can be very flexible.

Total time used: 1 hour

  • Review or watch a Master game.

Some people love reading books and going over Grand Master games that way. I like watching video's. So for this what I do is very simple. I go online to youtube and search chess video's. Some chess players like reviewing Grand Master games as well so its easy to find some online. Also if you play a certain line you can try and find a Grand Master game that might feature that line for example: If your tryed to learn the Sicilian Defence from black side or white side. You can find videos of that or sometimes I just watch some nice video's that are catchy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTcllgVDqL4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyh-Jf3Gh7Q

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_oYHeXNT7k


For this I usually do 30min to 1 hour depending on how long it took me to review my game.

In this case my game took me 1 hour so I would watch 30 mins worth of video in this case each 1 of the videos I posted are about 10 min each so 3 videos to get about 30 min total.

Total time used: 1 hour 30 mins

  • Do a 1-3 tactical puzzles.

These usually take me less than 5 mins well I do about 1-3 so it doesn't take me that long. I mean you could probably do more than 3 and it would increase the amount of time etc. In chess.com has a Tactical Trainer so you can even just use theirs if you wanted to.

www.chess.com/tactics

Total time used: 1 hour 35 mins

  • Review/Understand some chess opening theory.

The reason I have this one highlighted in red instead of the other ones is because every day I change it. You can see from below what it gets changed to the text that are highlighted in red.

Chess has 3 different phases of a game

  1. Opening Game = Opening theory
  2. Middle Game = Middle game planning coming up with idea's
  3. End Game = King and pawn endgames

Chess also has 2 things which need recognition

  1. Mating Patterns
  2. Pawn Structures

For example: I will use a health metaphor

Its almost like having a healthy balanced chess meal for the week you need to have all chess food groups represented.

So on Monday I will do opening theory (which are like fruits and vegetables lol)

On Tuesday I will do Middle Game (which are like the Meat, Fish and Alternatives lol)

On Wednesday I will do End Game (which is like the bread, other cereals, and potatoes)

On Thursday I will do Mating Patterns (which are like food containing fat and foods containing sugar. LOL Oh yeah you know its true. Those mating patterns are the junk food of chess don't lie to yourself LOL. We know the truth.)

On Friday I will do Pawn structure (Milk and dairy products etc.)

I think you get the point lol. Going back to my chess work out plan for Monday.

I would use the remaing time I had which is 25 mins to go over opening theory.

Which can be done in alot of ways. Online Video's about openings, Chess Databases, or Game explorers even chess.com has one.

www.chess.com/explorer

So you can spend 25 mins going over a line to learn the theory of what you can play or watch a video of a opening. Here is an example

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaDet1ClyXc

LOL funny enough that video is almost exactly 25 mins lol so their would be the end of our work out for Monday lol.

Total time used: 2 hour which is what I wanted.

So the below is what I would do for my Monday chess Work out.

  • Review & comment on 1 of my games.
  • Review or watch a Master game.
  • Do a 1-3 tactical puzzles.
  • Review/Understand some Opening Game = Opening theory.

If you want to see example of Tuesday's would be like.

  • Review & comment on 1 of my games.
  • Review or watch a Master game.
  • Do a 1-3 tactical puzzles.
  • Review/Understand some Middle Game = Middle game planning coming up with idea's.

Wednesday

  • Review & comment on 1 of my games.
  • Review or watch a Master game.
  • Do a 1-3 tactical puzzles.
  • Review/Understand some End Game = King and pawn endgames.

Again this is just the plan I use that I made based off my time of 2 hours of free time. I feel confident with it so far. I mean it might not be earth shattering but at least it is something. I feel as if I have gradually improved as well. I use to be ranked 500 and than I decided to do a plan and go 1 step at a time.

Set a goal of 600 for myself than when I reached it. I set new goal to 700 all the way up. Now I am almost 1700 on chess.com and on some other chess sites I play I am over 2000.

You have to start from some where even if its not the best plan in the world. At least its a plan. A bad plan is better than no plan.

I just want to be clear that I am not trying to make fun or discourage you in any way. It seems to me you have been wanting some improvement with the 4 forums you made. However, all those times of making them forums you never said how you plan to actually improve your chess. Never showed a schedule, routine, or plan.

Maybe at the time you never thought about making a plan. I don't know but its important to have a plan and set goals for yourself otherwise how will you know if you are making progress.

These are just my thoughts on the matter. Hopefully it can help you come up with an approach to improving your game or if you already have an approach maybe it will help you reevaluate your approach.

mchapma

X Player J

Really appreciate the work put into your post! As someone who is looking to get better this post is extremely helpful!

 

+1

mihinduep

I read in a book by  Alexei Sokolsky, "Your First Move," that pawns can be moved to take squares according to "en passant" method. Can you explain this in a video on YouTube and demostrate how pawns can take sqaures directly front of it or side of it? I would appreciate it very much.

ThisisChesstiny
X_PLAYER_J_X wrote:

If you wish to improve your chess you need a chess plan.

 

That whole post is excellent advice. If you take nothing else from X_PLAYER_J_X's post, then take this: you're in charge of your progress; start putting some effort in.

If you want another version on the same theme, here is my chess study planhttp://becomingachessmaster.com/study-plan/ 

VibrantMoves

Excellent post, Playa xD I will make sure Grinder reads it. Lol

Crazy_Assassin

Loved it player..

gamesfan
X_PLAYER_J_X wrote:

Let me give you an example lets say for Monday chess work out.Review & comment on 1 of my games. Review or watch a Master game. Do a 1-3 tactical puzzles. Review/Understand some Opening Game = Opening theory.

The reason I have this one highlighted in red instead of the other ones is because usually I change this one every day.


 

Review & comment on 1 of my games.

Total time used: 1 hour

Review or watch a Master game.

You have to start from some where even if its not the best plan in the world. At least its a plan. A bad plan is better than no plan.

I just want to be clear that I am not trying to make fun or discourage you in any way. It seems to me you have been wanting some improvement with the 4 forums you made. However, all those times of making them forums you never said how you plan to actually improve your chess. Never showed a schedule, routine, or plan.

Maybe at the time you never thought about making a plan. I don't know but its important to have a plan and set goals for yourself otherwise how will you know if you are making progress.

These are just my thoughts on the matter. Hopefully it can help you come up with an approach to improving your game or if you already have an approach maybe it will help you reevaluate your approach.

Thank you for your answer. I created these threads so that others would be able to tell me what mistake I was making. I did not have plan other than playing, training tactics and reviewing some of my games.

You have a good plan.

I will try to make my own plan with the help of the plan you made.

clarapca

@X_PLAYER_J_X   Excelent answer! LOL

 

NewArdweaden
X_PLAYER_J_X wrote:

 

How did this make its way into a chess thread?! Laughing

NewArdweaden

X_PLAYER_J_X
mchapma wrote:

X Player J

Really appreciate the work put into your post! As someone who is looking to get better this post is extremely helpful!

 

+1

ThisisChesstiny wrote:
X_PLAYER_J_X wrote:

If you wish to improve your chess you need a chess plan.

 

That whole post is excellent advice. If you take nothing else from X_PLAYER_J_X's post, then take this: you're in charge of your progress; start putting some effort in.

If you want another version on the same theme, here is my chess study planhttp://becomingachessmaster.com/study-plan/

VibrantMoves wrote:

Excellent post, Playa xD I will make sure Grinder reads it. Lol

Crazy_Assassin wrote:

Loved it player..

gamesfan wrote:

Thank you for your answer. I created these threads so that others would be able to tell me what mistake I was making. I did not have plan other than playing, training tactics and reviewing some of my games.

You have a good plan.

I will try to make my own plan with the help of the plan you made.

clarapca wrote:

@X_PLAYER_J_X   Excelent answer! LOL

 

 

When I wrote my post I did so in the effort to give some helpful advice for a person who seemed to be needing some.

I tryed to not be that harsh but more informative and funny. Which I naturally am a jolly person. I must say I did not expect people to start thanking me or say great answer LOL.

I also thought I was going to get some harsh criticism on my funny junk food metaphor. Thats right mating patterns go straight to the hips!

And yet seemed like you guys and gals liked it.

So what I will say is 2 things Your all Welcome and

Your post have inspired me to make a blog. So thank you all as well. I will admit I didn't plan on making a blog about this but since you guys/gals liked it maybe I should turn this comment I made into a blog.

So that way when people ask for improvement I will post the blog. When they look on the blog and read it I will tell them the blog was inspired by 6 people who liked my comment. Than I will have the following names mchapma, ThisisChesstiny, VibrantMoves, Crazy_Assassin, gamesfan, and clarapca as the inspiration team that helped the blog be created.

Than when the person reads it they will come up with a plan and might even achieve that ranking they always dreamed of which will make them happy and everyone will be happy and it will be happy making.

Also if you guys/gals don't want your named from above mentioned let me know and I will remove them from the blog.

I can feel its going to be a good blog.